


Home is Carlos

by marvinwhizzer



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Angst, Carlos in the Desert Otherworld, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, also yeah im bad at titles and summaries sorry, one of my fave things ive ever written!!!, set around episode 55
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-16
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-10-11 01:50:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17437604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marvinwhizzer/pseuds/marvinwhizzer
Summary: Cecil misses his boyfriend.





	Home is Carlos

**Author's Note:**

> cross-posting from my [tumblr](http://dianecrayton.tumblr.com/post/177315749090/so-cecilos-i-literally-had-to-stop-listening)! 
> 
> fun fact: this is the first thing i ever wrote about welcome to night vale!! i loved the show back when it was new and big in 2013-14, but i never wrote for it then (thankfully. 13 year old me was NOT a good writer.)  
> at the time of writing this i was only on episode 56 :')  
> this was written in the middle of the night in a flash of overwhelming emotion, and i think thats when some of my best work happens cause im super proud of this one so !!! i hope you like it

Cecil awakes in the desert. There is sand all around him, warm and coarse against his skin. He isn’t sure how he ended up here, having no memory of coming here, but he’s woken up in weirder places in the past. He is used to deserts, but this desert is not his own. He can feel it. Something in the air is completely different here.

He rises, brushing the sand off of himself as best as he can, and has a look at his surroundings. There is just desert, as far as he can see. Sand wastes strewn with sad, tiny shrubs and the strangest cacti he has ever seen. There is also a distant, looming shape – almost mountain-like in size and appearance, however, it’s difficult to say what it could actually be. He decides to start his journey towards that shape, drawn to it for reasons he cannot explain. He treks for quite a long time.

As the mountain-like mass gets closer, he sees that there is a light, blinking high upon it. It is red. Blinking lights are always red. The colour evokes an emotion within him. He recognizes it. He knows where he must be. His toes tingle with excitement underneath his sand-covered shoes. There is someone here he is longing to see.

As he continues moving forward, his steps become rapid, and his breaths become strained. He is running now, defying gravity, floating now, flying at maximum speeds. He watches the vast desert pass beneath him, dry and lifeless.

Before he even knows it, Cecil is floating up to a lighthouse. His feet find their way to solid ground, and it is his heart that starts to float next. Leap, perhaps, would be a better word. He can feel his throat tightening as he meets the eyes of the white-coated man standing before him, blinking in awe and confusion.

“Cecil?”

“Carlos?”

“Cecil!”

Carlos throws himself into Cecil’s arms, laughing a joyous laugh that’s riddled with secret tears and longing.

“I missed you,” says Carlos, smiling into Cecil’s chest.

“I missed you, too.” Cecil holds Carlos tightly. “Don’t scare me like that. I thought you’d be gone forever. I respect your research, and your acts of valiant heroism, but… I just wanted you to come home, Carlos. I’ve missed you so much.”

“Gosh, Cecil, I… I’m sorry. I missed you, too, more than you could ever even know. I watched you sometimes. I watched you through the photographs in the lighthouse. I saw you frowning, grimacing, whispering for me in the dead of night. I wanted to tell you that I love you, but I didn't want you to be freaked out over me watching you… It sounds silly now, but…”

“That's okay, I understand. Forget all that, Carlos, just… Shut up and kiss me, _please_ ,” Cecil begs, not caring about anything right now. What's past is past, what's now is now. It doesn’t matter how many lonely nights he spent longing anymore, because those days will be over now. Carlos is home! Well, Cecil is trapped in this desert otherworld with him. So neither of them are _home_ home, but they're at home with each other.

Kissing Carlos _is_ home. Running his fingers through Carlos’ thick, wavy hair is home. Carlos’ hands cupping his waist, his hand cupping Carlos’ delicate cheek, is home. Carlos and him, kissing, rolling in the sand, laughing, breathless, giggling, touching, _being_ … Home is Carlos. Cecil cares about nothing else anymore in this moment. He loves Night Vale, but he would honestly leave it all behind if it meant Carlos’ sandy, unwashed hair falling into his face, and the feeling of his back pressed against the gentle roll of a sand dune, and callused hands of a scientist stroking his face as he’s propped up on one elbow above him, staring down at him, eyes filled with love behind dusty, smudged glasses.

Cecil’s mouth had fallen agape, but his eyes were smiling. Carlos’ eyes smiled, too. His perfect lips grinned. He kissed his boyfriend again, laughing bubbly and brightly. Cecil’s heart tightened, filled to the brim with love and adoration. Carlos’ laugh was perfect. His mouth was perfect, his eyes were perfect, his hair, perfect. All was perfect. Carlos was his yet again. He never wanted this moment to end.

But then, just as soon as it had began, it ended.

Cecil awakens, once again. This time, he is in his own bed. This time, alone.

“Oh,” he says simply. “Oh.”

A small, weak whimper slides past his lips.

“Oh, Carlos,” he whispers, as he often does, helplessly into the still of the night. “Oh, Carlos…”

He stares up at the ceiling above him. He clutches at the pillow beside him, empty, devoid of any luscious presence, of any stray perfect hairs to tickle his neck as he shifts under the covers in the night. He sighs.

He sits up on the edge of the bed. The red light from his phone charging on the bedside table creates the only light in the room. It blinks. For a moment, he knows that Carlos would probably be awake right now, being, of course, in a desert otherworld where time is completely different from here at home, but he doesn’t think he would understand. Deep down, Cecil  _knows_  that Carlos would understand because Carlos  _loves_  him, and misses him, and cares about him deeply, but … everything seems so complicated right now. He could call, text, or email him right now, and possibly get an immediate response, but for some reason, he doesn’t.

“I miss you,” he sighs hopelessly instead, as if there might be someone around to hear. There is no one around to hear.

Cecil flops himself back down on his bed, exhaling, long and dramatic. He tries to return himself to the dull lull of sleep. His heart aches so painfully that it is hard to even imagine that Carlos is alive and well and just a click of a button away.

He quietly watches the blinking light on his phone blink for a while, before it dawns on him that blinking signifies a notification. A solid red light is for charging, and a blinking light means something else is happening. He wants to think that different colours of the blinking lights should signify something, but he knows that that’s ridiculous, since blinking lights are always red.

He reaches over and collects his phone from the bedside table, and is surprised, not unpleasantly, to see the notification on the screen. It is a Snapchat from Carlos.

The photo is of the night sky. There are specks of stars, and other strange shapes and lights, all along a backdrop of a dark velvety purple. It’s obviously hard to capture something like the sky in just a cell phone camera, but it looks remarkable. And familiar. The caption reads: “How’s my favourite radio host doing tonight?”

There is a subsequent Snap reading “Is it night there?” And another saying “I don’t mean to wake you up or anything, if it is. But the sky reminded me of home, and of you.”

Cecil’s chest tightens. The messages are sweet, but he wants Carlos to be here, with him, right now! He can’t take one more minute of this treacherous absence.

He half-heartedly lifts his phone above him to snap a photo, in which he is pouting, barely visible in the darkness, one cheek pressed against the pillow.

He types various iterations of whiny ‘I miss you’s and needy demands before backspacing and starting over from the beginning, chewing his lip in frustration and thought.

“Missing my favourite scientist tonight,” he captions it eventually, hitting send in a haste before he can think too deeply about any of it.

It takes less than a minute for Carlos to reply. He has switched to the inside camera of his phone, where he has a sympathetic, but genuine, sad smile.

“I miss you,” it reads.

Cecil has trouble breathing suddenly. He wants Carlos home. He needs Carlos home. It has been days, maybe even a week, since he has even heard Carlos’ voice, and his heart is screaming with longing. If he is free to send photos, maybe he will be free to call…

Cecil brings the phone up to his ear, and the first ring feels like it lasts a century. But a mere millisecond into the second, Carlos picks up.

“Cecil?”

“Carlos,” Cecil breathes, trembling.

“Cecil? Are you feeling alright?”

“It is so good to hear your voice. I’m– yes, I’m fine, Carlos, I… I just… miss you. I miss you so, so much.”

“Oh, Cecil,” Carlos sighs a beautiful sigh. “I miss you, too.”

“You need to come home now, Carlos.”

“I understand, Cecil. But you know it’s not as simple as that.”

Cecil wants to be mad, he wants to scream, he wants to  _yell_  at his beloved Carlos, to come home, come home right this instant,  _I need you to be home_ , but… he does know.

“I… I know,” he sighs eventually.

“You know I miss you, too,” says Carlos. His voice is genuine, but it just makes Cecil sad.

“I know,” he mumbles.

“Go look at the stars, Cecil.”

“The stars?”

“The stars. Just pull back your curtain and look at them, just for a moment.”

Cecil rises, and walks over to the bedroom window. He does as Carlos asks. The sky is velvet purple with flickers of stars and other distant shapes and lights. “I… am looking at them now. Is there some kind of special surprise here I’m supposed to see?”

“There’s not really a special surprise, no. I’ve not found a way back home just yet. I’ve just been looking at the sky a lot recently, and I wanted to share it with you.”

Come to think if it… The sky in Carlos’ picture did look very similar to the sky here in Night Vale. The sky probably looks similar no matter where you go. It is so vast, and everything else is so tiny, so insignificant.

“No matter where we are in the world, there’s always a beautiful sky to look at. And if we do it at the same time… it’s almost like we’re together.”

Tears prick the corners of Cecil’s eyes. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I really do miss home, Cecil. And I miss you. I guess in a way, you are my home.”

“Have you been dreaming of me at all?” Cecil asks, suddenly recalling the powerful sentiment of his dream.

“I… no, why?”

“Oh. I’ve dreamt of you a lot. I keep dreaming I’ll wake up next to you, or that I’m out in your desert, with you… together. But it’s not real… None of it is real. You’re never going to be home, are you?”

Cecil’s voice is breaking, and Carlos’ heart feels like it’s breaking, too. “Oh, Cecil… Cecil. Baby. Don’t say that…”

Cecil softens considerably at the pet name. Carlos has never called him one before. It’s gentle. But there are still tears welling in the corners of his eyes, threatening, dangerous, ready to spill down his face at any moment. “It’s–it’s been forever, Carlos.”

“Oh, honey,” Carlos coos again. “Oh, Cecil. I’ll be home soon. I promised. A scientist always keeps their promises. I’m sorry if I’ve been … distant, recently. I’m sorry if I’ve made you feel left out with my scientific interest in this world. I haven’t exactly been trying very hard to get home to you. It’s not that I don’t want to come home for you, it’s just that it’s so very strange here… So very compelling. You understand, right?”

“Not really, no,” Cecil admits finally. “I don’t understand. The most compelling thing to me … is you! I just want you here, I just want… you,” he huffs.

Carlos is silent for a long, long moment.

“I didn’t realize that was how you felt, Cecil… Gosh, I… I am so sorry. I’ve been a real jerk.”

“No, Carlos,” Cecil sighs. “You aren’t a jerk. I mean, I was  _kind of_  mad at you when you called  _that_  community more interesting than  _my_ community, but you aren’t a bad person… Okay, I was  _really_  mad. Is that vague, possibly nonexistent desert even really a  _community_? I disagree with that terminology. And I disagree with your opinion on their ‘scientific interest’. But… that's… okay! You didn’t mean any of that. You–you always mean well! I just need you to understand how much I miss you, Carlos. I want you here … with me! And I want you to feel the same way I do.”

“I understand, Cecil. I  _completely_  and  _actually_ understand this time. Ugh, you just wanted to be together and I brushed you away to gush about some silly science stuff. I am  _so_  sorry! I wish I could be home right now. I’m sorry I haven’t been looking for doors home. I will seriously get on that tomorrow, seriously. I- I should have been doing that already. God, I’m sorry. I want to be home. I do feel the same way. I’ve missed… Oh, oh dear… We’ve spent our anniversary apart, Cecil, haven’t we. How can I make it up to you?”

“It’s okay, Carlos. Sometimes we get invested in things, and forget to care about other things. I forgive you.”

“Really?”

Cecil is still mad, but he isn’t lying when he says he forgives Carlos. It’s not his fault that he’s trapped in that other dimension, and he won’t be able to be home instantly no matter how hard he is willing to try. He is definitely mad about the anniversary, but he doesn’t see any use in bringing that up right now. Carlos truly feels sorry. The feelings of anger will pass. “Yes. I love you.” Cecil bites his lip, hovering delicately over the next set of words. “And … I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry for making you feel guilty about being interested in that other desert. I’m sorry for being jealous. I just want you home. I’m sorry if that’s selfish of me, but… It’s been a really long time now and I just… I want to kiss you again. I want to hold you again.”

“I love you, too, Cecil. And it’s okay to be jealous. It’s okay to be mad. It’s okay to be… anything you ever are. I love you no matter what.”

Cecil smiles, wiping up some of his spilling tears with the sleeve of his nightshirt.

“Now, Cecil?” Carlos is saying. His voice is like soft silk; a delicate, private whisper into Cecil’s ear -- smooth; seductive; perfect.

“Yes, Carlos?”

“Tell me about your dream. I want to hear what fantastical truths your subconscious makes up about me when I’m not around.”

In another time, in another place, Carlos the scientist is lying down in the cool sand, unwashed sandy hair falling into his face as he stares up at a velvety, purple sky. His one hand rests on his knee, the other clutches dearly to a cell phone at his ear. The desert, vast and all-knowing, spans out wide and far in all directions around him. He pays no mind to this. His full focus and attention is on the smooth baritone voice drawling into his ear. He pictures the images from Cecil’s fantasy with awe, and a vague twinge of melancholy. He smiles, delighted, showing off teeth that are like a military cemetery.

Back home, in the other time and place, Cecil Palmer is yawning. His cheeks are decorated with a deep blush as he rambles embarrassing and personal stories into the distant ear of one that he loves. They talk until the latest hours of the night; until sunlight starts to stream in through the curtains of Cecil’s window, too happy and too afraid to let the other hang up.

**Author's Note:**

> i posted this on my tumblr last year and have written a ton more there since, as i do when im too lazy to come up with a title and summary for shorter things, but im going to start posting them on here soon as well so that they may reach a wider audience! stay tuned!!


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